New Brunswick: Education and Research

New Brunswick: Education and Research

Elementary and Secondary Schools

New Brunswick Public Schools, founded in 1851, are governed by a Board of Education, whose seven members are appointed by the mayor to staggered three-year terms. Instruction in computer literacy is given to all students. There are special gifted and talented programs, and non-college-bound students may elect the Educational Investment Contracting program, which trains them on the job in local business and industry. A new high school is currently in the planning stage and is expected to be completed in time for the 2007–2008 school year.

The following is a summary of data regarding the New Brunswick public schools as of the 2004–2005 school year.

Total enrollment: 7,500

Number of facilities elementary schools (K-8): 11

senior high schools: 1

other: 1

Student/teacher ratio: 21:1

Teacher salaries median: $54,585

Funding per pupil: $14,533

Middlesex County Vocational and Technical High Schools were established in 1915; one of these is located in New Brunswick and four more are located throughout the county. The county also offers the New Jersey State Teen Arts program, which identifies and promotes the artistic talents of teenagers. New Brunswick is the site of three parochial schools.

Public Schools Information: New Brunswick Public Schools, 24 Bayard St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901; telephone (732)745-5414

Colleges and Universities

Although New Jersey has existed in the shadow of New York City and Philadelphia, it has made important contributions to the nation's cultural life. In colonial times, it was the only colony to have two institutions of higher learning, at Princeton and New Brunswick, where Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, more commonly known as Rutgers University, is located. The eighth-oldest college in the United States, Rutgers is located on three regional campuses in Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick/Piscataway. Although enrollment is large (more than 50,000 students), the many colleges of small to moderate size maintain separate identities, traditions, and programs. Undergraduate programs lead to degrees in the arts, sciences, music, and fine arts. The university offers majors in more than 100 fields in its 29 degree-granting units. The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers serves the creative needs of the local community, including students enrolled in the college as well as other lifelong learners. Programs focus on the interaction of the visual arts with poetry, music, dance, and science.

The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is one of eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Rated among the top 50 primary care medical schools in the country, the school's faculty numbers more than 2,500. Middlesex County College in Edison has a two-year degree program that emphasizes job skills with more than 80 degree and certificate programs.

Libraries and Research Centers

New Brunswick Free Public Library, which traces its roots back to the 1796 Union Library Company, holds about 80,000 books, more than 200 periodicals, and some 1,000 videos. One of the library's main foci is being able accommodate the multicultural nature of the community it serves. The library's children's room is said to be remembered affectionately by generations of patrons. The system maintains one bookmobile. Special collections are maintained on local history and on the Hungarian language, and the library is a U.S. government document depository.

Among the more than one dozen libraries at Rutgers University are the main university library, whose collection numbers nearly 3 million volumes, and the Center for the American Woman and Politics Library. Rutgers' library system is ranked among the top 25 in the United States. Health, pharmacology, clinical medicine, and related topics are the focus of collections at Saint Peter's Medical Center Library, E.R. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company's Pharmaceutical Institute Library, Medical Research Library, and Robert Wood Johnson Library of Health Sciences. Gardner A. Sage Library, built in 1875, holds the archives of the Reformed Dutch Church. Middlesex County's Archives and Records Management Center in North Brunswick houses hundreds of thousands of government records and other public documents that have accumulated since 1683.

More than 60 research centers at Rutgers University study such topics as food technology, biology, economics, engineering, politics, AIDS research, computer science, shell-fish, mosquitoes, and the works of Thomas Alva Edison. The William L. Hutcheson Memorial Forest, in continuous ownership by the same family from 1701 to 1955, is maintained by Rutgers as a living forest laboratory. Rutgers is one of only 11 universities in the country to be part of the establishment of a national mathematics research center, and it has been designated by the State of New Jersey as one of five academic industrial centers for high technology research. Rutgers is part of the "super computer" consortium that operates the ETA-10 super computer, the largest computer of its kind in the world.

Public Library Information: New Brunswick Free Public Library, 60 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-2597; telephone (732)745-5108, fax (732)846-0226